The future of Europe's largest wooden roller coaster does not look bright. Colossos at Heide Park needs a very costly repair. Therefore, the park considers various scenarios, including the demolition of the iconic roller coaster. This is evidenced by an interview with a German fansite.

The largest wooden roller coaster in Europe has been SBNO since July 2016 for urgent maintenance and repair work. Earlier this year, Heide Park announced that Colossos will remain closed throughout the 2017 season. Any details could not be released, but a spokesman from the park said that "it's a replacement of the roller coaster track, which is a very difficult job. An opening date is not known yet, but we keep everyone informed as soon as there is more news," said the spokeswoman.

Last weekend, a conversation took place with the fansite "Freizeitpark-Welt" and some Heide Park managers. In addition, the park will come out with an official verdict regarding the future of Colossos at the end of this year. It was also said that the repair of the roller coaster is accompanied by a repaircost which is a two-digit million amount, so a very expensive repair.

The park is now looking with its investors and company Merlin Entertainments which decision they are going to make. There are currently different scenarios possible, including demolishing the roller coaster to replace it with a brand new attraction.

Yea, I mean Balder & El Toro doesn't seem to be having any problems and T Express that runs 10-11 months on average a year minus a month of maintenance and too cold to run days seems to be holding up almost as good as when I first rode it 6 years ago and that thing goes through an insane amount of cycles a year with 2-3 trains for 9-10 hours a day and an almost always busy queue and hauling crew.

Merlin didn't spend money on maintaining the ride as other parks with prefab woodies do.When it was deemed no longer safe to run they didn't fix it immediately they've left it for a year to 'decide' what to do. Meaning it has been left to rot.So the fact that it is now really costly to repair is no surprise.

Forgive my naivety, but I thought the idea of Intamin plug-and-play coasters was that track replacement was easy as they're just prefabricated pieces of track, hence 'plug and play'. Has winter maintenance and trackwork been neglected to the point it's beyond economical repair? As far as I'm concerned 'difficult' is just corporate BS for 'expensive' as I have seen plenty of coasters retracked in my lifetime.

KarlaKoaster wrote:Forgive my naivety, but I thought the idea of Intamin plug-and-play coasters was that track replacement was easy as they're just prefabricated pieces of track, hence 'plug and play'. Has winter maintenance and trackwork been neglected to the point it's beyond economical repair? As far as I'm concerned 'difficult' is just corporate BS for 'expensive' as I have seen plenty of coasters retracked in my lifetime.

All I've heard about plug-and-play is that they're cheaper to build because the prefabricated pieces are designed to easily snap together and would require less labor and faster construction, not that the track itself costs less to manufacture or maintain.

I thought it was that bad sections of track could be removed and then replaced more easily. But if they never replaced any track sections and had to do it all at once, that could be very costly.

It's a shame that Colossos reached this state considering how well the other pre-fabs are running. I really hope they save the ride, but I have a bad feeling a new ride is more marketable than pumping $10+ million (if it is in fact double digit millions to correct the ride) into saving their previous star attraction.

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